I imagine reading this article to a uranium mine worker in Namibia.
Over a video call? Please no...
A theory of Zoom fatigue
131–140 of 213 posts
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#132I think the money quote is this:
> perceiving an image of a body in virtual space rather than perceiving a body itself in shared space may be worse than not perceiving a body at all.
So drop the video and go audio only.
Of course, I'm legally blind, so I can't really understand why perceiving facial expressions and body language is apparently so important. But one of my best friends is totally blind, and the two of us have communicated over two decades without ever being able to see each other, so it can work.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#133I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…
Landlines were so fast and so "direct" in their latency (where distance correlates very directly with time, due to a lack of "hops") that local phone calls were faster than the speed of sound across a table, and for a bit after they came out--before people generally got used to seemingly random latency--local calls felt "intimate", like as if you were talking to someone in bed with their head right next to you; I als…
You should note that most landlines have significantly more delay than they used to have 50 years ago.
All landlines now get digitised and packetized, and usually go over an IP network, frequently via the landline companies HQ hundreds of miles away, before heading back to your neighbours house who you were calling...
Data is the same - If I ping my next door neighbor, from my broadband connection to his, it goes via London (my ISP's headquarters) and Manchester (his ISP's headquarters) before coming back to him, with a round trip latency of >20ms. In sound terms, that delay is like him standing in the next room over.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#134I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…
also the same feeling when you hear an analogue record playing vs a digital recording.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
That and you’re constantly struggling to decipher audio and make yourself understood. Much like talking in a bar that’s too loud is exhausting. A lot of the exhaustion seems like it’s the difficulty of compensating for a high latency, low-bandwidth, low quality experience. We’re just not evolved for it—reality is the opposite of all of those things.
This is it. The issue is exhaustion compensating for all the audio problems-- dogs barking, room echoes, compression, images out of sync, the delay in reactions (constantly being unsure if you were heard- not knowing what the correct volume you should be speaking is), being asked to repeat yourself, and the mix of your audio with those of others. It's a lot to process. With 15 people on "speakerphone", the audio is I…
Its normally partipants with bad mics, headphones, AGC and the crappy audio support in windows.
I do a number of actual play games and it's the players trying to use the built in mics/headphones that have difficulty hearing the group conversations.
I use a high quality external sound card and don't have that problem - hangouts does seem to disconnect me when I don't speak for a while as my noise floor is so low
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#136I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…
The real test if a decent VC or phone system is you can sing a song with the other person, and neither think they're out of sync.
No modern system allows that. Some old ones (analogue TV) did.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#137I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…
Latency is one issue, audio quality is, I suspect, another. Most VoIP applications have this characteristic "hyper-compressed" sound to them that I find tiresome in and of itself — sort of the same way that I find shopping mall-style lighting exhausting.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also played back a part of your own voice into your own earpiece, which helps make it sound like you’re in the same place. Zoom does not (at least AFAIK), so I have no way to judge if I’m speaking at an appropriate volume.
It doesn’t due to potential echo but you can set this up yourself with most headsets or with a mic and mixer; you need to with headphones that shut out your voice or you will shout to compensate.
True, but there are other ways it could provide this information to me. It could display a volume level meter on the screen, for example.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#139I think the money quote is this: > perceiving an image of a body in virtual space rather than perceiving a body itself in shared space may be worse than not perceiving a body at all. So drop the video and go audio only. Of course, I'm legally blind, so I can't really understand why perceiving facial expressions and body language is apparently so important. But one of my best friends is totally blind, and the two of u…
It's a familiarity thing. Sighted people are used to a manner of communication that includes visual cues, and people always prefer what they're used to. I also find that people who are used to visual in-person communication also dislike videoconferencing because they can't see things like when another person is crossing their legs or tapping their foot.
Whether any of that is actually beneficial is another question entirely. Personally, I have an easier time concentrating on the conversation when it is audio only.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#140I’m surprised this didn’t mention the elephant in the room: the audio quality is terrible. I simply can’t hear half of what is said, even at full volume in a quiet room. Either I ask for repetition all the time (and walk over whatever the next person said), or I assume it from context and let it go. Even when I can pick up all the sounds, it’s so different from hearing voice in person that I have to concentrate just…
Could it be an issue with microphones or speaker quality? My fully remote team has used zoom for all of our meetings, and unless someone is calling in from a cell phone in a busy area, I don't recall a time when I have had difficulty understanding someone. If anything, the fact that everyone has their own microphone makes it better than in person meetings, because you never have to struggle with that one person who d…
It’s possible, but then why is it $1000 smartphones are struggling with this, and $5 landline phones from 1993 did just fine? Did Apple skimp on audio hardware that bad? That’s a little hard to believe.